Uphill Climb

My friend, Sue, and I went for our regular Friday morning walk last week.  It's taken me until today to tell you about it for reasons that will become clear soon.  (Hint:  I am still recovering.)  Ordinarily, we walk the Fanno Creek Trail, which is sort of centrally located for both of us.  Nothing, however, is particularly central to where I live.  I live way out in the country, and so generally, it is incumbent upon me to make the drive into town.  Sue comes out my way once per season, as has been our unofficial agreement.  Friday, however, I was without a car, and so she agreed to come out my way.  I offered to cancel, but Sue, being the friend she is, would rather make the drive than miss our walk.

With all of that said, I had in mind a new path we could take.  It involved walking downhill about eight-tenths of a mile, then turning left onto a residential dirt road that winds around through the woods and ends up back on one of the few paved roads in the county.  At that point, the view of the Willamette Valley is spectacular.  Then, after taking in the view, we would continue on a short while and make a complete loop back to my house.

That would all have been fine except that the fog was distributed in such a way that morning that I knew if we went the opposite direction, we would get a chance to see the Willamette Valley filled with fog.  It's one of those views of clouds that gives the appearance that one could step off onto them and walk across (although I don't advise it).

So I got the bright idea to go the opposite direction and make the loop clockwise, rather than counter-clockwise.  The problem with this is that when one goes the opposite direction, the rural road I wanted to take no longer looks like a road.  It looks like a driveway.  And so we missed the turn completely and continued on. 

We walked, and walked, and walked, and wound around and over and into.  It was all very interesting and pretty.  Eventually, however, I had to admit that I had no idea where we were.  Worse, since I live at the top of a mountain (yes, a mountain--not a hill), I became increasingly concerned that our walk was taking us in only one direction--down.  I would have waved someone down and asked for directions, but I had little hope that would help us.  None of the road signs we were seeing were familiar to me.  We kept walking into and out of different counties, which isn't surprising, given our location next to the county line.  Eventually, after walking for hours (literally), we came to a stop sign.  This was no help, but a few yards up the road was another stop sign, and so we walked to that one.  Then . . . HOORAY!!  We were no longer lost.

This doesn't mean we were any less desparing, however, because now we realized that we were at the absolute bottom of our mountain.  There was no choice but to walk up, steeply, for what turned out to be 3.3 miles!!  This was on top of the nearly ten miles we'd already walked.  The weather was mercifully beautiful that day.  Nevertheless, all that uphill climb had me sweating until my clothes were soaked through.  Each time the sun went behind a cloud, it became very chilly.  And, since we'd only planned a three-hour tour (a la Gilligan, if you're old enough), we had no food nor any water.  So, in addition to being chilled to the bone, we were also hungry and thirsty.

After what seemed like we'd walked forEVER, we made it back.  Sue headed to her car, and I headed inside.  I had planned to take a dip in our hot tub to soothe my aching feet and legs, but instead, I ate and drank something quickly, stripped off my wet clothes, and got back into my still unmade bed.  I fell asleep and slept for hours.  I felt quite a bit better when I woke up.  Surprisingly, my legs didn't get too terribly sore from all this, but my butt certainly knew I'd been walking a long way uphill.

Sue and I have been on these "lost" adventures before, but never with such dire consequences.  I don't know about you, but having to walk more than three miles up a steep hill seems dire to me.  I'm not sorry we did it because I now have a better idea what I can and can't do given my current state of out-of-shape-ness.  Mike and I have since driven back to the place where we missed the turn, and it's easy to see how it happened.  The road isn't marked, and since it goes slightly uphill, with newspaper tubes at the beginning, it does indeed look like somebody's driveway.  Lesson learned.  Next time . . . we'll go counter-clockwise.  That is, if I can convince Sue to go with me the next time.

George is mad at me now, though.  I had promised him a walk that day too, and apologizing, I had to renege.